[BrandenburgAngel]

Name: Kethilie "Keth" Stormrede
Age: 23 {Late Autumn}
Height: 5' 6"
Weight: 153 lbs
Hair: {Natural} Coppery flame-red; {Dyed} Garnet red
Eyes: Greyish-green
Skin: Ivory with copper freckles
Race: Half-elf {Illuskan/Wood elf}

*Class: Fighter
*Alignment: Neutral Evil

Marks:
*Scars
~an inch wide band of pale scar tissue beginning at the nape of her neck, marking the line of her spine to the base
~several thin, short, white lines criss-crossing her cleavage
~a spiderweb of glossy white tissue over her left ankle


Externally...

This half-elf is attitude. Brows arching, lashes fluttering, smirks a-flyin', she's not afraid to strut her stuff even if it's all just one horrible bluff that's going to go wrong at any minute. If it does, she may burst into tears and run in order to get a better vantage point for her next move, bat her lashes and try to squirm out of trouble or go into full-on rage mode. Her ego may seem to be punctured now and then, but it quickly recovers, and she doesn't walk.

She struts. She strides.

Quick to anger, she can be just as quick to friendliness, and those who have flipped her temper to the breaking point are more likely to be sought out for conversation later. There's no time nor patience for those who are boring or too stodgy to enjoy something in life. More than just a bit flirtatious, she sways her curved hips, leans on counters to pull leather leggings tight over the slope of her backside and crosses her arms just to enhance the deep cleavage she tends to show off. While she's quite aware she's not physically perfect- those freckles, for one... UGH- it's nothing she focuses on. Why whine about something when you could just brag about everything else?

Firmly muscled from considerable physical work, she works her dramatic curves deliberately with tightly fitted clothing and low-cut blouses, usually in her favourite jet black. {White just makes her skin seem too... pinkish.} A hint of flame-red can be seen at her hairline as the dyed hair begins to grow out, and her lashes and brows seem a touch too pale for someone with a very dark garnet hair. With balanced features and cool greyish-green eyes that are as quick to sparkle with laughter as snap with malice, she's quite lovely.

And yes, she knows it. And yes, you should know it, too.


Internally...

It's not that Keth is irresponsible or flighty. It's just that she gets... well... bored. Flat-out bored with people who are focused on "building a life" when there's so much out there to explore and experience. Selfish? Oh, certainly. No one else is going to put her first, so obviously it's up to her to make sure she's cared for and comfortable. If something could benefit her, she's interested. If it's going to be fun? Even better; she'll actually be enthusiastic. Other than that? She's likely to roll her eyes and walk away, mentally preoccupied with finding herself a bit of fun.

Her temper is nigh-well uncontrollable and flares at the slightest provocation, unrestrained regardless of who or what is nearby. While she's not particularly malicious when it comes to honest mistakes, there's something icy in her that shows through when she feels genuinely wronged. Her eagerness to get into a fight can blur to silly, sensual teasing (if she finds the other person to her taste) or flare into the half-elf trying to genuinely kill whoever it is she's facing off against. The sheer adrenaline rush of a fight is addictive, and she likes it. Skill takes practice, and she's willing to practice. Oddly willing, for someone who'll take any available moment to flop onto something soft, drink wine or enjoy a few savoury treats.

Part of it is simple fear that one day, she'll be on the losing end and not be able to find a way out of it. It happens to everyone; it's happened to her already... And be damned if she'll let it happen again.


A Little Secret...

With an unremarkable childhood as a fishmonger's daughter in Waterdeep, Kethilie listened to her mother {the Illuskan who had seen her wood elf lover leave to aid an old friend of his in gaining back a family heirloom and never return} and studied very hard to attain some semblance of understanding regarding the arcane. It was one of those unspoken 'you're going to do this, be this and like it' rules of the house that little Keth never quite settled into accepting.

...theirs was a very chaotic household.

Despite that, she mastered a few basic cantrips after her mother roped a friend/sometimes lover into spending a few hours a week putting the little half-elf through her paces. His son was also going to be a wizard (again, like it or not) and the two children sat side by side on a bench in the back of the tiny library scraped together for their education, eyeing each other sidelong and throwing elbows when one felt the other had taken more than their fair share of the seat.

Naturally, they fell in love. She would swear it was out of self-defense, for they were forced into each other's company for longer and longer periods of time, and adolescence was inevitable. Yet more hours were spent with Jaou, going over and over the ridiculous hoops required to master arcane spells. Jaou won the apprenticeship; Lielie (as he called her) did not. For the first time in seven years, she waved good-bye as Jaou was taken from Waterdeep, and she was left to deal with her mother's disappointment that she'd failed miserably at any of the advanced magic.

Said failure resulted in quite a bit of time being spent hauling fish, arguing with sailors, administering fists to eyes for dock workers getting handsy and making friends with several of the less savory sort that preferred to drink in the alleyway between the nearby tavern and Keth's mother's shop. They were the ones who encouraged her when she swung a stick around to smack at rats and it was a gnoll nicknamed "Chuckles" who both taught her his language and gave her lessons in how to use a sword without getting herself killed.


That turned out to be quite the boon when Jaou returned, some seven years after he'd been taken away. Pride didn't quite cover the sheer hubris that had overtaken the young man at his arcane abilities, and the first week or so of their reunion was spent with Jaou nursing bruises and casting all of the most irritating spells he could find while Keth repeatedly threw him out the back door and into a heap of fish guts. The end of the week resulted in Keth packing her bags, giving a wave to her mother and accompanying Jaou on what he promised would be 'an adventure worth living through.'

She'd been bored of dealing with fish for years anyway.


What Jaou hadn't told her was that he'd come to Waterdeep on the run, and picking Keth up was insurance that he'd have someone to watch his back. As it turned out, the wizard who'd taken him for an apprentice had also been idly looking for a way to assassinate an old friend of his. As Jaou explained, if there's one thing you do when trying to survive two battling wizards, it's learn every possible way to avoid being struck by a spell. He promised to help her learn that if she kept him from being ambushed by his old master.

...huh... Soooo... He hadn't so much 'graduated' as 'snuck off' and when he explained to Keth that his master had not only been caught for the long-awaited successful assassination {by the man's elder sister, who happened to have an extremely powerful tiefling lover} but had been sold out by Jaou himself, she groaned LOUDLY. He grinned uneasily at the half-elf when explaining that his master might just be the littlest bit annoyed with his former pupil.

Not, of course, that it stopped Jaou and Keth from striking north along the coastline before heading inland. Nor did it seem to stop Jaou from showing Keth just how easy it was to make money, to manipulate people and to duck the consequences for such if you knew how to work the system. It was a continual rush of adrenaline highs that kept Keth following along, even when Jaou's style of 'handling trouble' involved sending her charging in with sword and shield while he hid somewhere behind and tossed a spell or two after her. There was coin in their pockets and an endless world of fun to be had.

That they'd been together long enough to fall into a relationship of bland comradeship was evident when Jaou's bedmates would wave to Keth as they passed her inn doors and she'd give them a grin and wink before heading to her own rest. A few awkward kisses and the two had discovered that, without that rush of adolescent hormonal insanity, they really... didn't have any chemistry. Jaou's constant comments about women who could break ships in half and looked like they were always covered in dirt were always met with a blithe statement about reedy men who couldn't carry anything to save their lives and needed a book to hide behind when fights began.

It was a comfortable enough partnership, and so they continued on; Jaou with his preferred blondes, Keth honing her flirting skills on men who were more than happy to carry her armour and pack horses, and keeping an eye on their backs for Jaou's former master. {There was no telling if the man had survived... or might have escaped...} Keth, of course, forgot about the entire hiccup after less than a year; Jaou was more focused, and when they drew within a hundred leagues of Thay, he became extremely uneasy. The suspicion that his former master was probably alive and had, in fact, been behind the last pack of mercenaries who'd discovered them didn't help.

Angling their path to pass through Telflamm, Jaou took Keth along with him to 'handle a problem.' The problem that he presented her with was an aging Shadowmaster who {apparently} owed them a considerable amount of money for a job that Jaou claimed to have done. It wasn't that Keth honestly believed everything he was saying; it was the fact that she'd been half-drunk for the last six months as both she and Jaou overindulged. What he said was somewhat logical; she couldn't figure out just why it was they'd not collected payment before.

...nor could she figure out why it was Jaou misspoke and cast some STUPID light flaring spell just as she broke the man's neck.


Escaping Telflamm was exceptionally tricky, and Keth was more than infuriated by the time they finally found a spot to hide out in Ashanath. They'd been seen- repeatedly- and the person they'd killed undoubtedly had enough family with a temper to want something done about the assassination. Not to mention they were out of money, considering their horses had been back in the city. An hour of screaming, yelling and raging, and Keth became eerily silent when Jaou simply slapped her.

There was a letter.

A description.

...and the Shadowmaster had been his former master's beloved.


Jaou's smug expression at having silenced the loud half-elf was pristine and untouched, for she'd moved so quickly, he'd not had time to even scowl when she broke his neck. Pawing through his pack, Keth was horrified to find that not only had he written to his former master, the Shadowmaster's family, someone named 'Greenwood' or 'Greenwilde' or... damn Jaou's incomprehensible handwristing but he'd also had sketches made of her, with a complete list of features.

Looking over the corpse of her childhood sweetheart and traveling partner, Keth built up a fire, burned everything in his bag and began hauling the corpse towards the nearest high ground she could find. It wasn't difficult to toss Jaou's body down to rocks which could easily explain his broken neck, and using some of his spell components to darken her hair took only a couple of hours in a small camp. Without any particular plan beyond 'don't get killed,' Keth thought to travel back to Telflamm and see if... juuuuust maybe she could placate some pretty angry, pretty powerful people with news of Jaou's death.


...hm. What luck that she ended up in Thay instead.


Tumblr:

Under a Red Shadow

[BrandenburgAngel]

If Forgotten Realms had t-shirts...

I couldn't pass up adding this to her profile; it's just far too apt.